Томас Майн Рид - Лучшие романы Томаса Майна Рида / The Best of Thomas Mayne Reid

The Jew and his companion, about a hundred yards ahead, had suddenly come to a stand. They appeared to be scrutinising the path.

Cubina, crouching in the shadow of the bushes, stopped likewise; and waited for the others to advance.

They did so after a short interval – hastening on as before; but in a slightly divergent direction.

“Ho, ho!” muttered the Maroon; “not for the Jumbé Rock, but the Duppy’s Hole! I remember now. The path forks up yonder. They’ve taken that which goes to the Hole. Well! it don’t help me to comprehend their purpose a bit clearer. Carrai ! that Duppy’s Hole! Didn’t some of my fellows tell me they’ve heard strange noises there lately? Quaco is ready to swear he saw the ghost of the old myal-man, Chakra, standing upon the edge of the cliff! They’re going there, as sure as my name’s Cubina!”

And with this conjectural reflection the Maroon forsook the shadow under which he had been sheltering, and flitted forward along the path.

Another five hundred yards further on, his conjecture was confirmed. The parties dogged by him had reached the edge of the precipice that frowned down upon the Duppy’s Hole, and there halted.

Cubina also made stop – as before concealing himself within the black shadow of the bushes.

He had scarcely crouched down, when his ears were saluted by a shrill whistle – not made by the lips, but proceeding from some instrument, as a reed or a common dog-call. It was plainly a signal, sounded either by Cynthia or the Jew, Cubina could not tell which.

Only once was it given. And there was no answer – for that similar sound, that came like an echo from the far forest, was a counterfeit. It was the mimic-note of the mock-bird.

Cubina, skilled in these voices of the night, knew this, and paid no heed to the distant sound. His whole attention was absorbed in watching the movements of the two individuals still standing upon the edge of the cliff. The white sky was beyond them, against which he could see their dark silhouettes outlined with perfect distinctness.

After about a minute’s time, he saw them once more in motion; and then both appeared to vanish from his view – not wasting into the air, but sinking into the ground, as if a trap-door had admitted them to the interior of the earth.

He saw this without much surprise. He knew they must have gone down the precipice, but how they had performed this feat was something that did surprise him a little.

It was but a short spell of astonishment. In a score of seconds he stood upon the edge of the precipice, at the spot where they had disappeared.

He looked down. He could trace, though dimly, a means of descent among the wattle of boughs and corrugated creepers that clasped the façade of the cliff. Even under the fantastic gleam of the moon, he could see that human hands had helped the construction of this natural ladder.

He stayed not to scrutinise it. An object of greater interest challenged his glance. On the disc of the lagoon – in the moonlight, a sheet of silver, like a mirror in its frame of dark mahogany – moved a thing of sharp, elliptical shape – a canoe.

Midships of the craft, a form was crouching. Was it human or demon?

The aspect was demon – the shape scarce human. Long, ape-like arms; a hunched back; teeth gleaming in the moonlight like the incisors of a shark; features everything but human to one who had not seen them before!

Cubina had seen them before. To him, though not familiar, they were known. If not the ghost of Chakra, he saw Chakra himself!

The heart of the young Maroon, though by nature bold and brave, was for a moment impressed with fear. He had known the myal-man of Mount Welcome – never very intimately – but enough to identify his person. Indeed, once seen, Chakra was a man to be remembered.

Cubina had, like every one else for miles around, heard of the trial of the Coromantee conjuror, and his condemnation to exposure on the Jumbé Rock. The peculiar mode of his execution – the cruel sentence – the celebrity of the scene where the criminal had been compelled to pass the last miserable hours of his existence – all combined to render his death even more notorious than his life; and few there were in the western end of the Island who had not heard of the myal-man of Mount Welcome, and the singular mode of atonement that justice had demanded him to make for his crimes.

In common with others, Cubina believed him dead. No wonder, then, that the heart of the Maroon should for a moment misgive him on seeing Chakra seated in a canoe, and paddling himself across the calm surface of the lagoon!

Under any circumstances, the sight of the Coromantee was not calculated to beget confidence in the beholder; but his unexpected appearance just then produced within the mind of the Maroon a feeling somewhat stronger than astonishment, and for some seconds he stood upon the cliff overcome by a feeling of awe.

Very soon, however, he remembered the statement which his lieutenant had made, and which Quaco had put in the form of an asseveration.

Quaco, like most of his colour, a firm believer in “Duppy” and “Jumbé,” had believed it to be Chakra’s ghost he had seen; and under the terror with which the sight had inspired him, instead of making an attempt to pursue the apparition, and prove whether it was flesh and blood, or only “empty air,” he had used his utmost speed to get away from the spot, leaving the myal-man’s ghost full master of the ground.

Cubina, less given to superstitious inclinings, only for a moment permitted himself to be mystified with the idea of a “Duppy.” Quaco’s experience, along with the presence of the penn-keeper and his companion – there evidently for a purpose – guided him to the conclusion that what he saw in the canoe was no spiritual Chakra, but Chakra in the flesh.

How the Coromantee came to be still living and moving, the Maroon could not so easily comprehend; but Cubina possessed acute reasoning powers, and the presence of the Jew, evidently en rapport [553]with the restored conjuror, went far towards explaining the mystery of the latter’s resurrection.

Satisfied that he saw Chakra himself, the Maroon placed himself in a position to watch the movements both of the men in the canoe, and those who had summoned him across the lagoon.

In another moment the canoe was lost sight of. It had passed under the bushes at the bottom of the cliff, where it was not visible from above.

Voices now ascended, which could be heard, but not distinctly.

Cubina could distinguish three voices taking part in the conversation – Chakra’s, the Jew’s, and, at longer intervals, the shrill treble of the slave Cynthia.

He bent his ear, and listened with keen attention – in hopes of hearing what they said. He could only catch an occasional word. The roar of the cascade rising along with the voices hindered him from hearing them distinctly; and, notwithstanding his earnest desire to do so, he was unable to make out the matter of the conversation.

Only for a short while was he kept waiting. The trialogue [554]came to a close, followed by a brief interval of silence – at the end of which the canoe once more made its appearance upon the open water of the lagoon.

Two persons only were in it, Chakra and the Jew. Cynthia had stayed by the bottom of the cliff.

Cubina made this observation with some chagrin. It was a circumstance that promised to frustrate the design he had suddenly conceived: of following the myal-man to his lair. This he desired to do, in order to make himself acquainted with the hiding-place of the remarkable runaway.

That it was down in the Duppy’s Hole there could be no doubt; and therefore the Maroon might at any time find him there.